By Christophe Herbert, psychologist
Defense Mechanisms: Identify Them, Understand Them, Respect Them
New: A$79 today instead of A$199 (launch offer).
Training by Christophe Herbert, psychologist (AI-enhanced course).
CONTINUING EDUCATION: DEFENSE MECHANISMS
Learn to recognize, make sense of and respect psychic defense mechanisms with this asynchronous course built for psychologists in clinical practice.
Defense mechanisms are the unconscious strategies every one of us deploys against anxiety, intrapsychic conflict and emotions that cannot yet be borne. This course trains you to spot these processes — in your patients, and in your own professional functioning.
COURSE CONTENT. You will study the theoretical groundwork: Anna Freud’s concepts and George Vaillant’s modern classification separating primitive, immature and mature defenses. The major mechanisms are covered one by one — repression, projection, identification, splitting, denial, intellectualization, sublimation, rationalization — and the hierarchy of defenses is laid out across four levels, showing how patients reach for different strategies according to their psychological maturation and clinical context.
SKILLS DEVELOPED. Spotting defenses live in session; understanding their construction and psychic function; respecting them — adjusting your interventions without attacking the patient’s adaptive equipment; and working with countertransference, treating your own defensive reactions as clinical information.
CLINICAL AIM. The course prepares you for a respectful approach to psychic defenses, at a distance from reflexive interpretation: knowing when and how to work with a defense rather than against it, according to the patient’s maturation and the phase of therapy.
Available around the clock, fully online at psy-training.com. Certified continuing education for professionals.
4 learning objectives. By the end of the course you will be able to:
- IDENTIFY the principal defense mechanisms (repression, projection, splitting, denial, intellectualization) both in the clinical dynamic and in your own countertransference.
- ANALYSE the hierarchy of defenses through Vaillant’s classification — primitive, immature, neurotic, mature — and adapt your therapeutic approach accordingly.
- RECOGNIZE context-specific defenses (trauma, depression, anxiety) and grasp their adaptive value for the patient.
- RESPECT defensive mechanisms and WORK WITH them according to psychological maturation, without attack or over-interpretation.
FAQ
Which defense mechanisms matter most clinically? Repression (keeping ideas and feelings out of awareness), projection (locating one’s own thoughts in others), splitting (keeping opposing representations apart), denial (refusing a piece of reality), intellectualization (excess of rationality), sublimation (channelling drive energy into socially valued activity) and rationalization (logical justification of the irrational).
What is Vaillant’s hierarchy? A four-level classification: primitive defenses (projection, denial, splitting — before age five), immature (projective identification, acting-out — childhood and adolescence), neurotic or evolved (repression, intellectualization — adulthood) and mature (sublimation, humour, altruism — optimal development).
How are defenses recognized in session? Through emotional inconsistencies, repeated narratives, resistance around certain topics, affects that stay unintegrated, and your countertransference — what the patient makes you feel. Defenses show themselves in narrative style, slips, gestures and emotional tone.
How does one respect a patient’s defenses? By matching the intervention to the defense’s maturity: primitive defenses call for structuring containment, mature defenses can be explored and nuanced. Systematic interpretation is avoided; the work goes with, not against, the patient’s adaptive machinery.
Knowledge validation test (certified training).
This training includes: slide-illustrated videos + training certificate.
Instructor: Christophe Herbert, Psychologist. Specialist in the psychotherapeutic support of victims and the severely bereaved. Director of H4 Publishing.
COURSE OUTLINE
- Introduction: why defenses deserve our attention today
- What a defense is: definition and function
- The hierarchy of defenses: levels of functioning
- The defenses most often met in session, and how to recognize them
- Reading defenses in the patient’s speech and behaviour
- Timing: when to interpret a defense — and when to leave it be
- Working with defenses rather than against them
Who is this for? Reserved for professionals (psychologists, psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, sexologists, psychiatric nurses, and so on) and students of psychology, psychiatry and related fields. Others may enquire at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
How to register and access the course. 1) Create your personal training space and pay the registration fee (invoice available). 2) The course — videos and downloadable documents — is then available in your personal space; complete it over as many sittings as you like, starting whenever suits you, with no deadline, and with the instructor reachable for questions. 3) Take the knowledge validation test (70% correct required; unlimited attempts — success should come from what you have learned). 4) Download your personalized certificate under the Psy-Training letterhead confirming completion and success.